The present invention relates generally to computer processing, and more particularly to techniques to generate invoices with entitlements.
Contract management is a ubiquitous challenge faced by many industries and organizations. In many industries, complex products and/or services may be offered, and these offerings may be associated with complex pricing structures, entitlements, billing and service delivery requirements, and so on. Contracts of varying degrees of complexity and scope may then be created and used for these offerings.
In general, a contract may be drafted to include any number of terms, and each term may be drafted to cover any matter of importance between contracting parties. For example, a contract may define certain pricing structure, cover certain services, offer certain preventive maintenance, and so on. For each of these terms, the scope of coverage may be negotiated depending on various factors such as, for example, the parties to the contract, the price paid, and so on. Contracts may thus be viewed as comprising various types of unstructured information.
A contract may be drafted to include various entitlements, which are benefits to be received under the contract once it is executed. For example, an entitlement may cover certain preventive maintenance, provide free service and parts for a particular period of time, offer special pricing on certain products and services, and so on.
During the life of the contracts, various activities and/or orders may be generated based on service requests or some other means. For example, an activity may relate to installation, repair, or service of a particular equipment, a sale or lease of a particular product, and so on. Some of the activities may be covered by previously executed contracts, and may be entitled to the benefits (if any) provided by these contracts. Invoices may need to be generated for the activities either before or after their performance.
Various challenges are encountered in generating invoices for activities. For example, the activities may be entitled to receive special pricing under the entitlements from the applicable contracts. Moreover, a large number of activities may need invoicing, and the entitlements may vary widely in complexity and scope. The challenges often magnify as the complexity and/or the number of activities, contracts, and entitlements increase.
Thus, techniques that may be used to generate invoices with entitlements are highly desirable.